


Drive highways and byways

by maggiedragon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 18:06:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon/pseuds/maggiedragon
Summary: God, Graves was beautiful. He had been seven years ago  too on a camp cot while the artillery pounded overhead and they lost themselves in each other. He'd been beautiful  even four years ago on the banks of the Thames when he’d shattered Theseus’ heart into a thousand pieces.  But it was 1923 and it was someone else who had broken him this time. It hadn't been Graves and Graves was here. Had come across the Atlantic, dealt with him drunk and sobbing and barely able to stand and Theseus was so, so tired of hurting.





	Drive highways and byways

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot stop myself from being mean to Theseus Scamander. 
> 
> [This is using this backhistory of how Graves and Theseus met and what happened: https://maggieandthedragon.tumblr.com/post/155263553941/theseus-and-graves ]

Theseus didn’t remember the precise moment he decided he needed to call Graves. Or why, honestly. When he pieced it together later, he remembered looking at the clock intently-- it had been 2 am-- only eight pm in New York, so maybe he’d just realized that clearly couldn’t trust himself to be alone in his barren and autumn-cold new flat. The broad hardwood that had looked so airy and bright when the realtor had showed him it just seemed stark now, walls bare and rooms empty except for a scattering of boxes. 

“Thes, what…how drunk are you?” His best friend, comrade-in-arms, former ( _disastrously former_ ) lover looked back through the roaring green flames at him. Had he meant to build the fire that high? Maybe magic wasn’t a good idea right now either. 

“...a lot?” Theseus gestured expansively at his empty flat, then realized that Graves couldn’t actually see the empty bottle (bottles?) in the kitchen. “I. A lot.” 

“I noticed.” Graves leaned forward, eyebrows furrowing. “Where’s Abel? How the hell did he--” 

Theseus didn’t hear the rest of it cause he started to laugh. Or cry. He wasn’t sure. It was loud and it made his ribs throb with a dull ache. “That’s funny. That’s really…really fucking funny. I wish I knew where Abel was too, Perce.”

Abel who had left. Abel who had stood on the beautiful hardwood floors of the flat they were supposed to share and lied and lied and lied. 

“ _Theseus._ ” Graves was talking; his voice was low and urgent, like they were back in the trenches but the war had been over for years, so where was the danger? 

“What?” 

“Have you warded your flat yet or can I just apparate in?” 

“I...you are _across the Atlantic._ No one can apparate--” 

“Thes!”

“No. No wards. Bad Auror. I know.” 

“Theseus. I’m coming. I want you to do two things for me. Put the fire out. Don’t drink any more. Say them back to me.” Graves’ voice was still low and urgent, threaded with something that sounded almost desperate. 

“I...I still don’t…Portkey.” Was Graves taking a Portkey?

“Please. Thes. What did I ask you to do?” He sounded frantic now. What had happened to make Graves sound frantic? Was the world spinning like this in New York as well?

“Extinguish the fire. Stop drinking. Right.” 

Grave broke the connection and Theseus did what he’d been told, extinguishing the fire. Graves had said he was coming. That didn’t make any sense. Graves had left, gone back to New York when Theseus had begged him to stay. The world was spinning. His head hurt. 

 

The next thing Theseus remembers is feeling like Death itself. His head pounded; his stomach churned and even the dim light was agonizing. 

“C’mon. Drink this.” Graves pressed a sparkling purple vial into his hand. Hangover potion and Theseus didn’t need to be told twice. When it had worked its magic, he realized that Graves had transfigured something-- a towel, maybe, based on the soft terrycloth against his skin-- into what was either a very large pillow or a very squishy mattress. He was shirtless and in pajama pants; his head on Graves’ chest. Grey light filtered through the windows; it must have still been only early morning. 

He stayed still, trying to sort through what he remembered of the night before. Graves had come, spun into existence in his living room and asked him to drink a potion that had forced all of the alcohol out through his pores, leaving him miserably sober, coated in sweat and reeking like a distillery. His copper hair was damp and the skin around his eyes felt tender and inflamed. He must have showered and broken down sobbing again. 

Graves’ voice was quiet, worn with fatigue. He must have sat up all night. “How are you feeling?” 

“....fine,” Theseus lied. 

Graves was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “Did I do this to you too?” he asked. “When I left.” 

Theseus was too tired, too raw. “Yes.” 

If Theseus hadn’t known him intimately-- known him heart, body and soul, he might have missed the flinch. There were quiet again for a moment. Graves’ hand kept moving on his back, thumb brushing his skin. The grey light and London fog muted everything. 

“I’m sorry,” Graves said finally. “I should have been more honest. With you. With myself.” 

_Honesty_ and Theseus wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or start drinking again. “Hell, Perce. At least you weren’t stepping out on me. If anything, you were stepping out on your _job_ and I was the other man.” 

Graves’ hand stilled. “Abel had someone else?” he asked. 

Theseus nodded and his chest went hard and tight. He would have curled in himself, broken again but Graves’ grip tightened on him, keeping him anchored in reality. “I don’t know who. I don’t….I don’t want to.”

“Alright.” There was a restlessness to Graves’ fingers now, less soothing and Theseus shifted to look at him, the thin line of tension on the other man’s jaw.

“What?”

“I know this is the last thing you want to think about, but can you afford this place on your own?”

“You are not giving me money, Perce. And yes, I can.” Theseus managed to push himself upright. He’d been so proud of this flat, two bedrooms in Ennismore Gardens, high ceilings and room to breathe after the crowded darkness of the chaotic Vauxhall walk-up he’d shared with Newt. Even now, even after all he could see when he looked at the living room was Abel standing there as he lied and lied and lied, he still loved it a little. He laughed. “Especially now, since I guess I’m accepting that promotion. Did I tell you? They want to make me Senior Auror.”

Graves’ smile was small but sincere. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “You’re not even thirty, Thes. That’s really impressive. But...you guess you’re accepting?”

Theseus snorted. “Being the Senior Auror’s live-in lover was a little too out for Abel. I think he was hoping I’d…” Choose the job over him. Let him walk away without having to tell him that he’d already given up, already stepped out because he somehow thought--

“If he thought you’d choose a job over him, he didn’t know you at all,” Graves said softly. 

“ _Fuck,_ how could I? I lo---” and Theseus choked on the words, every muscle locking with pain. Old pain, new pain. He would have refused the position in a heartbeat to make Abel happy, taken a demotion with cheer and none of it had mattered. He hadn’t been enough and here he was crying out his protest and his pain to the man who had refused to do exactly that. 

“We would never have worked, Thes,” Graves told him, voice still worn and soft. “You would have never come first and you would have hated it. And hated me in the end. You deserve to be someone’s priority.” 

Theseus flinched and swallowed the desire to scream with rage or start to weep again. He had tried that, trusted someone to want more than the pretty face and willing body, to want him enough to put him first and Abel had lied and lied and _lied_. “You’re shit at this whole comforting thing, Perce,” he got out and his voice was choked and ragged. 

“Then tell me what to do.” For the first time Graves’ voice broke a little and the older man seemed uncertain. God, he was beautiful. He had been seven years ago too on a camp cot while the artillery pounded overhead and they lost themselves in each other. He'd been beautiful even four years ago on the banks of the Thames when he’d shattered Theseus’ heart into a thousand pieces. But it was 1923 and it was Abel who had broken him this time. It hadn't been Graves and Graves was here. Had come across the Atlantic, dealt with him drunk and sobbing and barely able to stand and Theseus was so, so tired of hurting. 

Theseus slid into Grave’s lap and kissed him. 

“Are you sure?” Graves asked but Theseus’ fingers were already working on his shirt, tugging open buttons. He reached up, caught his wrists. “I don’t want to hurt--”

“You cannot hurt me more than I already am,” Theseus muttered and he pulled at Graves’ hands for a moment, trying to free his wrists but the older man’s grip was steady and unbreakable. “I…” He didn’t want to do this right now, didn’t want to think or plan or do anything or even dwell on how pathetic this was. Abel had broken him and he was throwing himself at the man who couldn’t love him in a desperate bid to forget. “Please. Perce. Please. Make me stop thinking.” 

“Alright,” Graves said softly. He kissed him, rolled him under against the terrycloth mattress.

Theseus could have wept at the infinite care the other man was taking. Like he was fragile-- or like he was precious. It was selfish, but Theseus didn’t care, letting Graves strip them both, kiss a line down his chest and take him into his mouth until Theseus was hard and panting and whining. "Please Perce, just fuck me already…"

“You were saying something?” Graves murmured even he caught his hips, aligning them so he could press inside. 

“Fuck,” Theseus breathed against his neck, hands fisting in his hair, body arching to meet his. It had been years since they’d done this, even longer since they had gone to bed like this, sober and full of intention. Why, then, was it still so familiar? It felt like he knew every inch of Graves’ skin, even when he didn’t. The coarse skin of the _Scindere_ scar rasped against his fingers. He’d grown his hair out from the military-issue whitewall cut; it hung loose and copper almost to his shoulders where Graves’ fingers tangled unexpectedly in it. But the soft, satisfied purr when Graves realized he could fist a hand in it, tug his hair back to lay a line of kisses down his throat was entirely familiar. The muscles that tensed and worked under the Scindere scar were still just as powerful as Graves moved with him, inside him. 

And still Perce’s voice rang in his head. _We would never have worked._ But this. They worked like this, at least, skin on skin and heart on heart and Percival buried inside him as his voice went rough against his ear. “Thes, my darling.”

The old endearment made him whimper and he pressed into the kiss, heart hammering like artillery. The friction, Graves pressing heavy against him stole his breath, kept him from weeping even as he clung to the other man and begged through cries of pleasure for him to say it again. 

_Darling. Thes. My darling._ and Theseus came with a cry, locking his legs around the other man as he broke apart again under Percival Graves. The other man followed him with a baritone curse, hoarse and worn. 

Theseus slept. 

 

When he woke, the light through the windows was the lemon-yellow of early afternoon and he was alone in a--- bed? Graves must have found and disenchanted his Shrunken furniture. His pajama pants were neatly folded at the base of the bed; he pulled them on and padded barefoot into the living room. 

There was soft clinking from the galley kitchen. Graves stood there in shirt sleeves, coat, blazer and vest slung over the table as he unwrapped champagne coupes and inspected them for damage. “I left any box that wasn’t labelled in your handwriting.”

“It’s all mine.” Theseus said as he came into the kitchen to join him. “Abel said he’d bring his things later and Merlin...” He was an Auror, for pity’s sake. Abel...had said he’d bring his stuff later. He’d not been concerned about only Theseus’ name going on the mortgage. “How much of an idiot am I for not seeing this coming?” 

Graves settled an arm around him. “Is that going to help?” he asked.

“No. But I’m going to do it anyway,” Theseus muttered petulantly against his chest. 

“You loved him; you wanted to believe it would work.” Graves held him close with one hand, thumb moving carefully on his bare back. He held up another champagne coupe to the light for inspection. “Having faith isn’t a fault. You just stumbled on two men who didn’t deserve it.” 

“Perce--” 

Graves didn’t let him argue with the calm condemnation. “I told MACUSA I was taking a couple days’ leave. I can help you unpack; settle in.” He paused. “Or leave if you’d rather I wasn’t here.” 

“Stay,” Theseus told him. He missed his best friend in more ways than one. He missed the steadying presence and the cracks in his demeanor that buried warmth showed through. He missed the practical solutions and the fingers in his hair, the corded muscle under his back and the baritone rasp of _my darling_. They never would have worked. Graves was...more right about that than Theseus wanted to admit. He would have never come first. He would have resented it; resented him and in the end it would have destroyed them. 

But they worked like this, in the butter-lemon light of a half-unpacked flat, with old memories and new scars. It wasn’t what he had wanted, but it was close. It was so close to love that Theseus couldn’t alway tell the difference and if he couldn’t have his lover, then he would have his best friend and glut his sapling heart on Percival Graves until he had the strength to grow it back anew.


End file.
